


Earth Song

by opalmatrix



Category: The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Male-Female Friendship, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Spring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22995544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: The winter had been terrible, but the Golem sees the end of it coming at last
Relationships: Ahmad/Chava (The Golem and the Jinni)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	Earth Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalirush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalirush/gifts).



As the Golem and the Jinni had both feared, the winter was a hard one. He endured the cold as best he could, starved for sunlight; she dragged her heavy limbs to work and back to her boarding house again. The lengthening days at last gave promise of warmth to come, but the air remained cold and wet: snow, rain, sleet.

There came a morning in March no brighter, no warmer than than its forerunners, but the air was different somehow. As the Golem walked to the bakery, she felt as though she could taste something with every breath she made herself take: something softer, sweeter than the hard-edged air of winter. All day in the bakery, she was restless, almost as though she were waiting the night away, hoping for the hours to go more quickly so that she might go out. Although she made no serious mistakes, Mrs. Radzin and the new girl exchanged baffled glances: _What now?_

At last, Mrs. Radzin took pity on her. "Chaveleh, this day is so slow, there's not enough work to need three. Go, already: it's only an hour and a half you have left. Take a walk; I know how you like to use your legs."

The Golem stammered her astonished thanks. Outside at last, she saw that the seemingly unassailable clouds were being torn apart by the airs high above, revealing an innocent, sweet blue sky in patches. All at once, she knew where she was going. And walking would take too long. She caught the uptown train at Essex Street station and rode to 57th Street. There she alighted and walked again, to the 6th Avenue entrance of Central Park.

She felt the earth calling to her, as it had the previous spring, and she walked into the park, hardly able to make her feet stay on the path. This path by the Pond was not so popular with casual strollers: thick trees lined it on both sides. She came out into the open at the Pond itself, where the sun was now shining on open ground, and looked as though she were dying of thirst, and the sight before her eyes was cool water.

"Why do we need to go there by day?" asked the Djinni, the following morning. "Why was it so urgent that you had to send a messenger?"

"You'll see," she said. "Look, the sun is shining. Doesn't it feel good?"

It did. The Djinni sighed. "Not as good as summer, but after that winter, I'm glad for anything."

The Golem smiled.

Soon they were following the path she'd traced yesterday, the Djinni grumbling because the branches of the trees, even bare, were blocking some of the sun. "Be patient," urged the Golem. "Just a few more steps."

The Jinni smiled. He remembered last spring, when the wakening earth had seemed to speak to her. She had that same lightness, as though the very clay of which she was formed had gained another dose of life. They walked out of the little wood to where the bridge spanned an arm of the Pond. And the Djinni hardly needed his companion's triumphant "There!"

All along the slopes ahead, nestled in the winter-brown grass, were small flowers of a soft blue-violet, their saffron throats blazing like a thousand thousand tiny suns. "Ah, my heart, those lovely little ones. I know them: zaʻfaran."

"Here, they are called 'crocuses'," she said. "I asked a woman who was painting their picture. I didn't know that you had seen these before, that you like them! I am so glad. I just thought you would be happy for the promise of better days to come."

"They would bloom in the hills between the mountains and the desert, like this, millions. But these are precious, a little piece of my home." He walked forward to sit on a sun-warmed rock; she joined him, her skirted pooling about her. After a few moments, he said, "You don't mind sitting here, like this?"

"Maybe I'm sitting quietly," she said, "But, inside, I'm singing."

He smiled, and she did. They sat there for more than an hour, together.

Painting and calligraphy ( _etegami_ ) by my friend and former colleague [The Etegamist](https://etegamist.com/), who based the picture on a photo I had taken and used words from my suggestion of Joyce Kilmer's "Easter": 

THE AIR is like a butterfly  
With frail blue wings.  
The happy earth looks at the sky  
And sings.


End file.
